Trip in First to ORD in the summer. Advice on price, itinerary and TPs
 

Hi All,

I am planning to go to Chicago in the summer to visit a friend, have a mini holiday and get some Tier Points at the same time.

I have found a good fare out of Inverness and you can see two of the options below. It is possible at JFK, BOS or EWR. If I left with the morning flight out of INV, I’d have the option of an overnight in ATL rather than at LHR.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6692dfd0f9.png
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...158c160598.png

Could I do better in terms of price and/or TPs? Any recommendations on routing? Transiting through JFK is a bit of a pain, but then I would get access to the CCR on the way back. What should I go for on the outbound?

Anything else I might be missing?

changing to AA at JFK would get you access (by dint of your BA Gold / OW Emerald status) to the AA Flagship check-on and Lounge which makes the transfer a little less painful

I'd say that was a pretty good price. I'm doing an ex-INV to Chicago via JFK in April in J for £1350.

Oh, and the other question I have is if there would be any way to get AA to issue this, as I have 2 $100 vouchers to spend with them!

Try the AA multi trip option on the AA website or call them and give them the AA codeshare numbers. The AA phone staff are great. Will cost you £15 for the phone booking fee.

I do NYC to ORD a couple of times a year and I never go direct so that I squeeze in another 40TPs each way. I am assuming this fare allows connections in the US of course.. Via Charlotte provides a regular service with easy connections at the airport.

my personal preference is to get a later flight out of NYC to LON so that im tired. A 6:10pm flight from EWR on an7u7 is something I would avoid! YMMV though.

I've just tried and INV-LHR-JFK-CLT-ORD adds another £1k! :(

It also seems that I can only get 747s on the TATL segments!

£1700 is R/T in F price?

Holy [expletive] we get shafted going the opposite direction.

Yes, it is. Obviously only the TATL is in First. And it's a special fare! Prices are not always like that!

... but do you want to go to Inverness??

Actually, by your schedule you posted, your US domestic would be in Domestic F. So not a bad deal at all. Why are you not booking this right. now. :D :D :D



For that price, sure. Nothing a cheap internal flight in the UK wouldn't solve.


I'm looking in the off-season from US->UK in December right now. So far prices just for business is $3800 (£2700) give or take. Tickets I booked for summer weren't even that high. Although I admit I must have picked up a decent deal, but even r/t into LHR was only $3600 at the time.


It is what it is, obviously, but it just amazes me sometimes that US-UK/EU is at times almost double the same route but ex-UK/EU.

Fortunately for BA not everyone wishes to start their journey 550 miles from their front door.

You make a very good point though. Compared to others spread around the world UK/Europe based travellers have it very easy.

Oh yes! But I mean... Domestic First and TATL First are not exactly the same :D

I'll say. I just priced a mirror-image trip ORD-LHR-INV in F, on OP's selected dates... $4,875, or about £3,465. Exactly 2X what OP is looking at.